Before sentencing, prosecutor Nancy Clifford read a statement on behalf of Kathleen Kearns, who Clifford said could not attend court Monday because she has multiple sclerosis and she was further disabled by the attack.

In her letter, Kathleen Kearns requested the judge give the maximum sentence.

The next morning, Kathleen Kearns said, she woke up to Joseph Kearns stabbing her in the eye and head. She said he stopped and left the room after she lay still. She managed to leave her room when she said Joseph Kearns spotted her. "You're not dead yet?" she said Joseph Kearns asked her before taking her cane and "bashing" her in the head with it. She said she lay still again so he would think she was dead.

"I knew Mom was already dead," she wrote, adding that it was most likely her mother's spirit that gave her strength to get back up when it seemed safe to call for help.

After she read the note, Clifford told the court: "Joseph chooses to blame his mother for loving and caring for him and somehow this love pushed him to a murderous rage. His family and society must be protected from him."

Joseph Kearns spoke afterward, saying he lost control of himself because he thought his family wanted to put him in a facility for the mentally ill.